[abolitionist organization] that gathered the
funds to hire the defense team to defend these
slaves, and they hired John Quincy Adams,”
he points out.

For Robinson, the show is personal. He
studied at Atlanta University, now called Clark
Atlanta, where Woodruff taught for 15 years,
launching national exhibits for black artists
whose work was suppressed by segregation.
Woodruff also produced six Art of the Negro
murals that remain a focal point at Clark Atlanta’s historic Trevor Arnett Hall.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I
would be in a museum and be able to host an
exhibition by Hale Woodruff,” says Robinson.

It’s also meaningful to Dallas, he continues, because Woodruff was one of a handful
of artists who exhibited at the Texas Centennial State Fair in 1936 in the Hall of Negro
Life, which stood on the same spot as the African American Museum.

Further, he notes, “Several of us here feelthat we have a personal relationship with hisart because we went to Atlanta University, andwe have some supporters who went to Talla-dega College.”The museum has programmed activitieson Saturdays to support the show, includinggallery talks and lectures, performances of theone-act play Harriet Tubman and the UndergroundRailroad, and screenings of Steven Spielberg’s1997 film Amistad. Plans also call for buildinga replica of the schooner in one of the gal-leries.